Raising ceiling dramatically changes a room

Brian Patrick Flynn designed this living room for HGTV’s “Urban Oasis 2015” house that had ceilings barely 8 feet high and were raised as shown to create a dramatic open space.(Photo: Sarah Dario/Flynnside Out/Scripps Networks Interactive via AP)

Frank Lloyd Wright would manipulate the impact of a flat ceiling by designing it lower near a room’s entrance.

“So when you came in the room and he popped it up, you felt that you’d arrived somewhere,” says architect Kevin Lichten, founder of the architecture and design firm Lichten Craig.

Trouble is, many other midcentury home-builders didn’t get Wright’s message. America’s suburbs are dotted with high ranches and split-level houses with flat and noticeably low 8- or 9-foot ceilings.

Some homeowners are opting to change that, removing a low, flat ceiling and extending it all the way up to the roof. It’s a big project, but it can powerfully change the look and feel of a home.

Piggyback on other construction

If you’re already doing heavy remodeling — perhaps removing walls to open up a kitchen and dining room — consider raising the ceiling in those rooms, suggests Chip Wade, contractor and host of HGTV’s “Elbow Room” and “Curb Appeal: The Block.” The expense and challenge of redistributing the roof’s load can be shared by both projects.

If you’re not making any other changes, then raising a ceiling is an expensive choice, similar to putting an addition on your house, says Scott McGillivray of the DIY Network series “Income Property.”

Every home is different

Raising the ceiling of an older, pre-1950s home can be simpler than doing so on a newer home, says McGillivray, because older houses were often built with rafters rather than prefab trusses. Exposing rafters doesn’t change the structure of the roof, so it’s a smaller job.

Removing modern trusses and rebuilding the roof’s support is a larger project, usually involving the addition of a huge center beam running the length of the room.

Older, Victorian-style houses are likely to have a very pitched roof, adding considerable height to a room. So you can raise the ceiling to a game-changing height by exposing those vintage rafters.

You can make the most of a decorative ceiling through “vertical tricks,” says Lichten. Try installing paneling vertically up to the ceiling, or adding tall, vertical windows to create the illusion of height.

Or try making the ceiling artificially lower at the entrance by adding a few inches of soffit above the doorway.